


the siren sang(and so he fell)

by redhairtaeyong (golden_thoughts)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Magic!AU, Multi, Polyamory, Tags will be updated, idk just read it, mermaid!au, taeyong is a mermaid, ten is a siren
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 14:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20083369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/golden_thoughts/pseuds/redhairtaeyong
Summary: Taeyong and Ten had been chased out of their kingdoms long, long ago. Yet here they were, alive, in love, singing out to the stars and stars only.And then the human came.





	the siren sang(and so he fell)

**Author's Note:**

> i love mermaids polyamory and nct and thus this was born. idk enjoy.

Ten sings, his voice melting the air itself as it floats throughout the sea. He rises an octave, and the waves rise with him, the animals around him swimming quicker, setting the stage for the performance.

He’s rising, chasing the melody that lives within him as he cries out, the sound loud and beautiful.

Taeyong is enraptured, watching him with a small smile from his perch on a warm rock nearby. 

He isn’t caught up because of the music, though. It’s just  him . Taeyong swears that beauty must not have existed until Ten spoke, until Ten decided he loved to make art for no one else but himself.

As Ten’s song fades into a shy hum, Taeyong jumps down from the rocks and swims to him.

He wants to tell him how beautiful it was, but the language they share just can’t express it right, so he slips underwater, pulling the other with him.

Sounds escape from somewhere in the back of his throat, something magical but slippery and confusing.

Ten can’t understand him, it’s a very specific mermaid dialect he could never fathom learning, but he can feel the effort, and you don’t always need to understand the words to feel them.

The other finally goes silent, preferring to gaze at his siren for a bit.

The sun is setting, now, and the pair decide to swim up, into the cave, so they can see it from above.

Ten splashes Taeyong with his tail.

“Agh! Stop it!” He yells, giggling all the same.

Ten shakes his head and splashes him more, the water droplets making him glow against the golden evening.

“You can speak, Ten.” Taeyong says gently, when Ten stops his attack.

“Are you sure?” Ten squeaks, looking afraid-his voice typically causes more trouble than good.

“ _Yes_ .” Taeyong says, laying a hand on Ten’s face. 

The silver-haired man smiles, but it turns into a smirk as he breathes in.

“We should go to land again.” He says, confidently, the after-echo of his siren song still ringing in every syllable.

Taeyong pulls his hand away quickly and groans.

“Really? With all the...humans?” He says, not necessarily  _disgusted_ , just... _concerned_ .

“Yes, with all the humans.” Ten says, rolling his eyes.

Taeyong is about to retort, about to start a monologue on why he  _doesn’t_ want to do that, when a noise startles the two of them.

It sounds like someone who slipped, and they immediately look behind them, into the cave’s interior, where there’s possibly another entrance farther in.

They see nothing, but the sound of a harsh English word proves their suspicions true.

“Go under, I’ll sing.” Ten whispers, desperately hoping his voice doesn’t echo this time.

“But you  can’t , you just did!” Taeyong whisper-yells back, worried.

“We can’t leave the ring behind, and we can’t take it underwater either!” Ten fires back, as the sound of footsteps approaches.

Taeyong shakes his head, shoots one last look towards the cave, and pulls Ten under with him.

He knows he’ll get an earful later, probably filled with swears and yelling, but he can’t be bothered to care.

Ten is squirming in his grip, and he has a dangerous look in his eyes, but he freezes when a shadow crosses the surface of the water in front of them. Whoever was coming, has arrived.

“Is anyone there?” The figure asks, voice garbled and odd as it travels through the water.

Ten is obviously straining himself to hear, and Taeyong is struggling as well.

Then, the figure speaks some more.

“Look, this is so stupid, but I was just out swimming on the beach, and then I felt this aching pull to come here and then I heard one of the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard and now I really need to know I’m not crazy before I go get a therapist.” It rambles, and as Taeyong tries to translate, Ten seems to soften.

“He heard me.” He mouths to Tae, a strange smile on his face.

Taeyong widens his eyes-Ten has never let anyone hear him except Taeyong himself, and a human was no exception-so why was he smiling?

Taeyong is contemplating all of this when Ten finally flicks his wrist and starts swimming back up.

“Ten, wait no!” Taeyong says, scrambling to grab him.

Ten looks down at him and throws a kiss, before swimming faster to the surface.

-

Johnny is having a pretty bad day.

He just got fired, his rent is late and his landlord is pissed, and he was supposed to go out with his friends for at least some semblance of fun and enjoyment but alas, it appears they are  also  having bad days. 

He feels like crying.  It’s been rough for a while, he thinks. 

He tries to think of why, of when everything went to shit, but he comes up blank except for-Sicheng.

Ever since Sicheng just up and disappeared into the ocean, the world seems to have stopped. Time is nonexistent, maybe it always was. Johnny doesn’t want to think about it for too long again.

So here he is, at the beach, wishing the ocean could just wash him away into the sand, too.

He’s been here for a couple of hours, and he’s actually planning to leave when he feels it. 

The wind shifts, it feels like it’s....pushing him.

He eyes the cave entrance at the far side of the shoreline.

No one ever enters it, the daytime lifeguards make sure of that, but it’s late afternoon and October, and truthfully only Johnny was crazy enough to swim in the freezing cold water.

So he starts walking toward it, the feeling that he absolutely has to see it pulling him forward.

He stops right at the entrance.  _Farther_ , whispers something in him he doesn’t recognize.

He steps in.

He’s walked for merely a few seconds-was it minutes? Time seems to have faded away again-when he hears it.

It’s a voice, but not. It’s something more powerful than a voice, it feels like...like  magic .

The sound is wrapping around him, it feels like home, like he was missing a piece of himself and this sound, this song, revealed it to him again.

It flies through the air he breathes, and it’s almost as if he can taste it. He can feel the sea washing against him even though he’s almost completely dry.

He runs toward it.

It ends, but he continues as it echoes through his head.

He only stops when he finally sees a light.

It’s the sunset, shining onto a rock wall that faces another entrance-opening? 

He can’t see this secret opening, as he decides to stay in the small hallway area he’s in.

Then he hears it.

“We should go to land again.”

The sound is less powerful than the melody he had heard earlier, but it feels like the magic is still there, hidden in the echo of whomever’s voice it was.

He hears someone else, but without the magic, he can’t make it out.

He takes a step forward to confront the two people.

He promptly slips and falls on his ass.

He curses, “Shit!” 

As he looks to get up, he hears shuffling, and the magic voice, but it’s fading away, the echo resembling a dream in the first few minutes of waking-slipping away, as though it never happened.

He scrambles to get up, it sounds like they’re leaving, he can’t let that happen.

He runs out into the open area.

There’s...no one.

It was his imagination.

He suddenly has a vivid flashback to Sicheng, how he was in the wave-and then he wasn’t.

_Strange, how things just flit in and out of existence with no meaning at all._

“Is anyone there?” He asks, somewhat desperately.

He holds back a sigh at the silence.

“Look, this is so stupid, but I was just out swimming on the beach, and then I felt this aching pull to come here and then I heard one of the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard and now I really need to know I’m not crazy before I go get a therapist.” He rambles, knowing he probably sounds stupid and he’s way too desperate and all he can see is his own mistake and-

There’s silver in the water.

_There’s-hair? That’s hair? Is that-oh my god it has eyes. Pretty eyes but-_

Johnny blinks as the figure peeks out of the water. He sees melanin skin, and cautious eyes, and gorgeous silver hair.

He freezes. The figure shows more of it-himself.

As he comes up, Johnny notices his whole face, his collar bones, the golden locket necklace laying elegantly against his chest.

“H-hi.” He stammers in English.

The man smiles at him, tilting his head. He gives him a once over, and smirks.

“Did you fall?” He says, and holy shit, he has a sexy voice.

“Um, yeah, I slipped, sorry.” He says quickly, rather interested in hearing the other speak more.

“It is fine.” He says, and Johnny almost swoons over his unrecognizable accent.

They stand they’re in silence for a bit, Johnny carefully watching this man as he sways and floats in the water, and the man seemingly inspecting him for who knows what.

“Didn’t you have a friend?” Johnny blurts out, and god, does he hate his brain right now.

The man looks at him suspiciously, “What do you mean?”

“Uh, I heard someone else, another voice?” He explains, just wanting to see the silver-haired man smile again.

The man in question pauses. He dives under.

“Wait! Wait, please, sorry I-oh hello.” He says, as another face pops up from under the water.

They won’t look at him, they look nervous and scared, and only look down into the water, or angrily at silver-haired boy.

“This is Taeyong.” Silver man says, nonchalantly.

Johnny waves, Taeyong nods.

“I’m Ten.” Silver man says, smiling again.

He smiles back, “I’m Johnny.”

Ten looks somewhat surprised, but he gets over it quickly, grinning.

“Hi Johnny~” He says, in an odd, somewhat flirty way that has Johnny’s heart flipping.

He watches as his friend-Taeyong-slaps his arm and whispers angrily in a language he can’t recognize.

“So,  Johnny , wanna see something cool?” Ten says, smirking again.

Honestly, how could Johnny ever say no?

He nods, sharply.

“Okay, you see how the water’s kind of glowing?” Ten asks, and Johnny finally takes note of where he is. 

It’s definitely night now, and the cave is definitely dark save for the glowing water he just so happened to not notice and a yellow candle burning in the corner.

He nods again and Ten smiles.

“Watch.” Ten whispers, and Johnny swears he’s never focused as hard on anything as he is now.

Ten slowly moves to lay on his back. Taeyong is moving away, his eyes shut as though he can’t believe Ten is doing this.

Johnny watches as Ten’s legs rise to the surface-except they don’t.

He sees scales, green blue and yellow scales painted across Ten’s lower body. He watches as the scales glow, bright and incredible.

Now, every sane braincell in his mind is screaming at him to run, to leave, but the way Ten looks at him with nervous expectance keeps him rooted to his spot.

“It’s beautiful.” He whispers unintentionally, as he tries to ignore how weird it is and focus on the beauty.

Ten lets out a relieved breath.

“Come on in then, Johnny.” 

**Author's Note:**

> me: i like to subtly foreshadow mystery and angst in my stories  
also me: there’s mystery and angst in my stories


End file.
